India evacuates tens of thousands as Cyclone Arnab nears coast

Visakhapatnam — India is moving tens of thousands of people out of low-lying areas of its eastern coast as Cyclone Arnab, rated a “very severe” storm by forecasters, strengthens over the Bay of Bengal ahead of landfall on Wednesday morning. More than 12 million people live along the cyclone’s projected path, according to Andhra Pradesh’s disaster management authority, Al Jazeera reported.

The India Meteorological Department said the storm was centred about 260km southeast of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh’s most populous city, and was expected to turn northwest and cross the coast by 11:30am local time (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday. It forecast sustained winds of 115–125km/h, with gusts up to 140km/h.

Nearly 50,000 people had been shifted to shelters from vulnerable parts of Andhra Pradesh by Monday night, out of an estimated 400,000 the state believes need evacuation, the disaster authority’s managing director, Prakhar Jain, told Reuters. “Evacuation is continuing,” he said. In neighbouring Odisha, authorities plan to move 48,000 people to safety, according to The Hindu newspaper.

The disruption is already spreading. Railway authorities said at least 12 trains had been cancelled in eastern India, with services suspended on 53 routes along the southern coast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Arnab formed over the Bay of Bengal, one of the world’s most active breeding grounds for tropical cyclones, whose storms regularly batter India’s eastern seaboard. The cyclone’s projected path runs inland and north across the country, and the effects are expected to reach well beyond the coast: Nepal has advised tourists to avoid high-altitude areas from Thursday night to Saturday, warning the system could bring heavy rain, snowstorms and avalanches to the Himalayas. The advisory follows a Himalayan flash flood in August that killed about 1,500 people.

The next clear marker comes at 11:30am local time on Wednesday, the meteorological department’s projected landfall. Whether Arnab holds its current wind speeds — and whether states can move the remaining hundreds of thousands in time — will determine the scale of the impact.